


Page of this Story

by epkitty



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dark, Disturbing Themes, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-03
Updated: 2011-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:51:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Halloween tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Page of this Story

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the spooky spirit of haunting poems from the 1800s, particularly 'Exordium' by Arrigo Boito (as translated by John Hollander), from which the title for this fanwork is taken.

 Glorfindel had a certain ideal of what birch trees should be, with their smooth white bark interrupted by craggy ridges of brackish brown. They were slender rickety things, too fragile to ever grow very old, like flowers or human girls, and always pretty. Too young yet to ever grow beautiful, and too colorless. But they were pretty.

High narrow branches a wraith’s arms, never sturdy nor near enough to climb. He’d only ever known one poor birch to break this fanciful mold. An old, wretched thing it was, at the far end of the western woods, too near the Trollshaws for comfort. A giant old monster, it had outgrown the elms and oaks, even the evergreens. All its poor relations deceased from an old forest fire that this hulking monster had survived, scarred and twisted in its youth. No leaves grew on its southern side, not in spring nor summer nor any other season. It retained the lower branches that usually dropped off with age, as properly displayed by the surrounding pines.

The trunk had swelled to massive proportions, knotty and lumpy as an old woman. Glorfindel could not have wrapped his arms fully around it, had he ever the urge to try.

He visited the birch rarely, when the odd mood struck him and he wished the company of something natural and imperfect, slightly twisted.

Today, he slowly circled the old thing, his fingers rasping against the white bark, stained with something old and dark.  
 He softly hummed an old folk song, his deep voice groaning like a fall wind, and scratchy. Idle, half-cognizant. “As the hungering days so pass me by…” Though it was the high noon of summer, his feet dragged through dead leaves. “As whispering hills do roll…” He ducked beneath the lower limbs at every pass. “So the wearying nights silent die…” It was always quiet near the tree. No birds nested there. “And temple bells daily toll…” So far from the House, even screaming, you wouldn’t be heard. “Your kisses I remember.”

“Glorfindel.”

Dull blue eyes glanced up with a sudden spark. “Erestor.” A smile grew over the handsome features, replacing the withdrawn, distracted gaze. His eyes had focus, his expression had meaning. “I didn’t know you were out here.”

Erestor smiled flirtingly. “Right.”

“No really!”

A sudden wind stirred the wood, but the birch tree did not sway. Glorfindel frowned, peering up through the branches. An odd shadow seemed to swing over him. He blinked at the sun, momentarily blinded. “Did you see a crow?”

Erestor peered at the sky. “Mmm. No. No birds today, Glorfindel.” He glided over the earth, leaves rasping underfoot as he passed into the realm of the birch. “How are you?”

Glorfindel thought the question odd. He smiled. “Fine as new plum wine.”

Grinning back with rare familiarity, Erestor told him, “How I’d like to sip that wine.”

“Only a sip?”

“You tease.”

“Me?!” Glorfindel slowly leered, one side of his mouth curving up; that charming, lopsided smile.

Another sudden breeze ripped the air, stronger than the first and Glorfindel shivered with it. Erestor’s hair rippled, pulling away to reveal the swan curve of his pale neck.  Glorfindel’s blue eyes darted to the exposed skin and away to the dead leaves.

“I saw you looking,” Erestor called him on it at once.

Shrugging, Glorfindel wandered around the tree again, long, strong fingers dancing over the marred bark. “Saintly seasons pass on through…”

“Dying winds so aptly moan,” Erestor sang, his fair tenor a happy juxtaposition against Glorfindel’s rumbled baritone.

“I’ve never heard you sing.”

“Did you think I couldn’t?” Flirting.

“Thought you wouldn’t,” Glorfindel said truthfully. “Glad I was wrong.”

“Can you say that again?” Erestor teased.

“Nope. First confession’s free. After that, I charge extra.” Lop-sided smile.

“A kiss?”

“Two.”

Erestor shook his head, black hair dangling free. “Why haven’t we done this before?”

“Life gets in the way of love, my friend.”

= = = = =

“What are you singing?”

Glorfindel looked up from Erestor’s book to find Arwen entering the family parlor. Her long hair was kept back in one straight braid, a light dusting of flour along her cheek and nose. Short sleeves revealed milky pale, willowy arms.

“Oh, it’s an old song,” Glorfindel told her, closing the book so that his thumb marked his place. “Have you not heard it? ‘As the hungering days--’”

“‘So pass me by.’ Yes,” she agreed. “An awful sad song it is,” she murmured, sitting on the chaise longue that opposed Glorfindel’s stately chair. She regarded him with bright, searching eyes. “You look well.”

He nodded, thinking of the times they lived in. Everyone looked a mite worn lately. “Thank you. I see you’ve been keeping busy,” he gestured at her face.

“What?” She brushed gentle fingers over her cheek. They came away powdered white. She laughed, a tinkling sound. “I hadn’t realized…!”

He smiled, and took up the wineglass beside him to drink.

Pulling a plain white handkerchief from some hidden pocket, Arwen lightly drew it down her nose and along the swooping planes of her face. It disappeared and, kicking off light shoes, she pulled her naked feet up under her. She regarded the Captain strangely, studying him. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “Would you care for some wine?” He indicated his glass, a delicate thin-stemmed thing with nearly clear liquid sloshing about. “Plum wine.”

She stared a moment, gray blue eyes glassy and far away, and then agreed. “Yes, please.”

He stood to fetch a glass from the hutch and poured from a crystal decanter that stood on the short table beside his chair. “Here you are, milady.”

She smiled involuntarily at the formal address that he so often used at informal occasions, treating her always as a princess. She accepted the glass and murmured her thanks. Swirling the sweet liquor, she daintily inhaled, eyes closed. “Erestor’s favorite?” Tentative.

“Yes,” his ready answer. “Well, not only his favorite.” Glorfindel gazed absently into the pale pink concoction. “Only thing he ever drinks.”

Arwen frowned and bowed her head before sipping from that crystal glass. The dark braid fell over her shoulder, her pale face stark against the night. A complexion like her father’s. Or Erestor’s.

Glorfindel was idly studying the pale surface of his wine. “Do you know what the first words were that Erestor spoke to me?”

Arwen shook her head.

“‘Here. Try some wine.’” He gave a hearty laugh. Gleaming blue eyes flashed up to meet pale gray. “We never had so many arguments as we did over wine!”

Letting a grin slip into place, Arwen coyly told him, “I don’t believe you: all those councils…”

Another booming laugh welled up Glorfindel’s throat. “Repartee to entertain the lot of them! I still remember your father trying to hide his snicker when the argument over waste treatment cropped up.”

Arwen winced and shook her head. “You are a scoundrel,” she told him, as if confirming the fact for the first time.

= = = = =

“Erestor? Erestor!” Glorfindel was near out of breath by the time he came within sight of the birch.

“What ho?” the calm response. Erestor looked up. He sat at the base of the tree, naked knees jutting into the air, robes pooled languorously about his thighs. His bare toes plucked at the dying grass and dead leaves that meandered the dry dirt circling the tree.

Brown black eyes peered through the strands of inky hair that fell before the too pale face.

“Guessed you might be here this time.” Glorfindel moved closer, until he had to duck under the birch’s branches to stand beneath the umbrella of the tree’s embrace. He hunkered down so that he balanced on the balls of his feet, forearms resting on taut thighs. “By the Valar, you’re gorgeous.”

A grin curled the side of Erestor’s pink mouth as he bowed his head. “And you’re crouched there like some great beast on the prowl.” He looked up again, dark eyes piercing the curtain of his hair. “Your prey in sight, you’re ready to pounce…”   
Glorfindel smiled and laughed until he fell onto his backside, hands hitting the ground, legs kicking up into the air. “You’re a novel fellow, Counselor. Do you accuse all your suitors of predatory habits?”

“You’re my only suitor,” Erestor breathed out.

Sighing, Glorfindel rubbed his face, fingers massaging over his eyes. “Are the fools blind or just afraid?”

“Well,” Erestor drawled, sliding one leg out straight until his toes hovered near Glorfindel’s knee, “if I recall correctly, you never did get around to the courting bit.”

The warrior swung his leg over Erestor’s until his body lay perpendicular to the Counselor’s. He lay on his side, golden head propped on a strong hand. “Never did get around to dancing,” he agreed with a regretful sigh.

= = = = =

“Glorfindel.”

At the sound of his Lord’s voice, the Captain jerked out of his daze, nearly falling from his chair as he swiveled to face the door. “Elrond.”   
“Glad to see you’re still with us.” Elrond heaved a sigh and ducked through the low entrance to Glorfindel’s cramped office. The office was actually a tack room off the stables. A desk had been shoved in between saddles imported from the east and the bridles hung in lines on the wall. A brush served as paperweight on a pile of loose reports. Elrond turned his nose up at the rickety stool opposing the desk. He chose not to sit. “Listen, Glorfindel. I’ve been overhearing some things from your men…”

“Complaints?” Blue eyes flashed up with worry.

“No. More like concerns.” Elrond glanced out the open window at the training ring. It was empty. He looked down at those worried eyes. “You’re drifting.”

Sitting back in his plush chair, so amazingly out of place in the stable’s tack room, Glorfindel furrowed his brow and pouted. “What do you mean?”

It seemed Elrond tried to push away his troubles by pushing his dark hair back from his temples. “Will you come to dinner tonight? In the hall?”

“Uh, sure?”

“Is that an answer? Or a question?”

“I’ll be there.”

= = = = =

There were mostly pines. Fir trees, an eternal forest, proliferated in the western woods before it turned into the Trollshaws, where the dogwoods and hickories took over. The evergreens seemed to part before him as he moved westward, forevergreen boughs that would -- in winter -- be heavy with snow, but still strong.

Now, they were just green. Sometimes, Glorfindel had to gently push one aside.

He trod the rippling sea of criss-crossed roots breaking the surface of the brown earth.

The topmost branches, bone-white and brittle and bare of leaves, came into sight above the pointed conical pine treetops, like a blind worm wriggling atop the pungent new spring grass. Its withered leaves hung in spiraled skeletal masses.

He finally cleared the last of the needled branches before green growth ceased and the birch rose tall and taller yet before him. The sun was near setting, but still Glorfindel shielded his eyes, looking up into the wretchedly twisted branches. He thought he saw something hanging there, but then reckoned it must be the odd shadows cast at the hour before sunset.

The gloaming light played tricks, even on the eyes of Elves.

“Erestor?” Glorfindel shivered unexpectedly at the sight of the tree standing tall and immovable. “Erestor.”

There was no one there.

“Glorfindel.”

He turned around. “There you are. I dreamed of you.”

“You should be at dinner.”

“Nah.” Glorfindel followed Erestor, who began to circle the tree with a strolling gait. “Where are you going?”

Erestor slowed and smiled sideways at him. “Nowhere.”

“Glorfindel!”

They both turned to look at the forest.

“Melpomaen is looking for you.”

Glorfindel smirked at Erestor. “Thanks.”

“Glorfindel!”

Erestor kissed Glorfindel’s cheek. “Good bye.”

“What?”

“Glorfindel!”

The Captain spun around. “Melpomaen! What?”

“Dinner. Elrond’s sent me to find you.”

Glorfindel shook his head and turned back to find Erestor. Who was gone.

“Forget dinner,” Melpomaen amended, fully entering the strange limbo between the birch and the rest of the world. “Glorfindel, come here.”

Still distracted, Glorfindel shifted nearer to the counselor. When he reached Melpomaen’s side, he saw Melpomean’s gaze trained on the higher branches of the birch, eerily still and silent, a shipwreck of the forest, all bones. “I wish you’d leave this blasted place alone.”

“It’s not cursed, Counselor,” Glorfindel told him. “I like it here.”

“I don’t.” Melpomaen crossed his arms, as a man who is chilled. “Come away.”

“Just another minute,” Glorfindel disagreed, moving closer to the hulking trunk of the thing. He laid a firm hand on the brittle black bark that broke through the papered white.

“He’s not here.”

Glorfindel leaned his forehead to the dry old bark. He felt a shadow swing over him. He twisted his head and peered up to the branches. One limb stood out, thicker than the rest, gnarled and stubby.

A shadow swung before him. “I found him.”

Melpomaen’s voice was little more than a croak. “I know you did.”

Tears welled up in sky blue eyes and he needed no imagination, only memory, to recall that ghostly imprint on his mind of a body hung from that gnarled, knotty branch.

“If I told him I loved him, do you think things would have been different?”

= = = = =

As the hungering days so pass me by  
As whispering hills do roll,  
So the wearying nights silent die  
And temple bells daily toll.  
Your kisses I remember

Saintly seasons pass on through  
Dying winds so aptly moan  
From my fingers, winter seeds flew,  
The seeds of bitter, newly sown  
In wind-tossed cold November

A year, a month, and a day go by  
I return to reap what’s grown,  
But from me the withering plants shy  
Curled over like an ancient crone  
In snowy, bleak December

Winter harvest, I tearful gather,  
The lonely windy cry, too loud;  
Reaping in autumn months I’d rather,  
My old soul: too dull, too proud.  
Long gone, the loving ember

Nosegay hug tight my chest  
The sour scent, I help but crave;  
Bare, cool ground I sit and rest,  
The doleful plants adorn the grave.  
Your kisses I remember

= = = = =

The End


End file.
